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Mystery murder of Iraq women's leader

HER long blonde hair made Fern Holland an instantly recognisable figure in the southern Iraqi towns where she insisted on driving herself and refused any bodyguards. The distinctive golden mane also meant there was little doubt about her identity when Iraqi police found her last week, shot dead with two colleagues.

The circumstances of Holland’s death remain obscure this weekend, but they raise questions that go to the heart of the American-led occupation of Iraq.

Holland, 33, believed passionately in her mission to help Iraqi women. But did her conviction make her believe she was somehow invulnerable? Was she sufficiently aware of the hostility that simmered beneath the surface, a resentment that has led to the deaths of hundreds of coalition troops and Iraqis working with them?

Holland moved among the Iraqi people and spent most of her days in a women’s centre she had set up in Karbala, a